4.22.2005
Screenwriting 101 — Act I
Carrying on from my self-directed reading list in My Personal Screenwriting Syllabus post, I have been viewing some movies with certain concepts in mind. Namely, the "9 Minute Movie" described in How to Write Movie in 21 Days (shortened to 21Days for the rest of this post) and "The Hero's Journey" as outlined in The Writer's Journey, Second Edition: Mythic Structure for Writers (aka Journey). Or I should say that I've viewed the first 30 minutes or so (approximately to the end of Act I) of a couple of movies, so far.
Firstly, a very brief overview of the concepts. The "9 Minute Movie" is recommended as a way of approaching the initial outline of a screenplay. So you take nine index cards; on the first one you write about the opening scene of your script. On card 2, you write something about the movie's main theme that will appear on page 3 of your script (or minute 3 of your movie, since 1 page of script is usually equivalent to 1 minute of film). On card 3, you write a line of dialogue for page 10 that tells us whose story it is and what they want. On card 4, you write about some sort of curve thrown at your main character that they have to react to on page 30, which is typically the end of the first act. Since that's all I'm studying right now, I'll leave the rest of the cards for another "lesson."
As for "The Hero's Journey," it is in some ways far more complex being based on Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which sort of parallels Jung's universal archetypes, but it's all distilled down to practical advice for writers. The Hero's Journey worksheet has twelve stages, of which I'm only dealing with the first five at the moment: 1. Ordinary World; 2. Call to Adventure; 3. Refusal of the Call; 4. Mentor; 5. First Threshold. (Though I have to keep in mind that the order of the Hero's Journey can be somewhat flexible.)
So, in combining the two approaches, I'm examining:
1. The opening scene in the movie (minute 1, 21Days)
2. Ordinary World (Journey)
3. The theme (minute 3, 21Days)
4. Call to Adventure (Journey)
5. Whose story and what do they want? (minute 10, 21Days)
6. Refusal of the Call (Journey)
7. First Threshold (Journey), which should merge with the curve at the end of Act I (minute 30, 21Days)
Both Jerry Maguire and Pretty Woman were on TV tonight, so I opted to examine those. And it's amazing how well these things apply.
Jerry Maguire:
1. Jerry opens with a voice over and an image of the earth.
2. It quickly moves from the general to the specific and soon we're seeing a sports montage and learn that he's a sports agent in his Ordinary World.
3. Minute 3 has Jerry saying that he "handles lives and dreams" and that it's "what I do best." Would that be considered a theme? Works for me.
4. Jerry's Call to Adventure comes when he writes his mission statement at around the 8 or 9 minute mark.
5. He almost immediately Refuses the Call when he tries to stop the mission statement from being distributed. (I thought it was a nice touch having the character in the movie that he's watching say "Boom" as Jerry is realizing what a horrible mistake he might have made.)
6. At the 11 minute mark, after Jerry receives the applause from everyone at the office because of the mission statement, his voice over says, "I was 35. I had started my life." Which I think fits the 'whose story is it' bit of dialogue.
7. He gets fired at around the 22 minute mark and by minute 30 he's yelling "Show me the money!" into the phone to the Cuba Gooding Jr. character, missing calls with all of his other clients as he tries to convince this one. I think that episode qualifies as a curve and The First Threshold.
Pretty Woman: I didn't watch this one as carefully, but I was interested to notice that Julia Roberts' line to her hooker friend, Kit, "Don't you want to get out of here?" happened at the 10 minute mark... identifying the movie as her story and telling us that what she wants is a better life. She then gets hired to spend the whole week as Richard Gere's "beck and call girl" at minute 30. First Threshold, perhaps? Hmmm...
Firstly, a very brief overview of the concepts. The "9 Minute Movie" is recommended as a way of approaching the initial outline of a screenplay. So you take nine index cards; on the first one you write about the opening scene of your script. On card 2, you write something about the movie's main theme that will appear on page 3 of your script (or minute 3 of your movie, since 1 page of script is usually equivalent to 1 minute of film). On card 3, you write a line of dialogue for page 10 that tells us whose story it is and what they want. On card 4, you write about some sort of curve thrown at your main character that they have to react to on page 30, which is typically the end of the first act. Since that's all I'm studying right now, I'll leave the rest of the cards for another "lesson."
As for "The Hero's Journey," it is in some ways far more complex being based on Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which sort of parallels Jung's universal archetypes, but it's all distilled down to practical advice for writers. The Hero's Journey worksheet has twelve stages, of which I'm only dealing with the first five at the moment: 1. Ordinary World; 2. Call to Adventure; 3. Refusal of the Call; 4. Mentor; 5. First Threshold. (Though I have to keep in mind that the order of the Hero's Journey can be somewhat flexible.)
So, in combining the two approaches, I'm examining:
1. The opening scene in the movie (minute 1, 21Days)
2. Ordinary World (Journey)
3. The theme (minute 3, 21Days)
4. Call to Adventure (Journey)
5. Whose story and what do they want? (minute 10, 21Days)
6. Refusal of the Call (Journey)
7. First Threshold (Journey), which should merge with the curve at the end of Act I (minute 30, 21Days)
Both Jerry Maguire and Pretty Woman were on TV tonight, so I opted to examine those. And it's amazing how well these things apply.
Jerry Maguire:
1. Jerry opens with a voice over and an image of the earth.
2. It quickly moves from the general to the specific and soon we're seeing a sports montage and learn that he's a sports agent in his Ordinary World.
3. Minute 3 has Jerry saying that he "handles lives and dreams" and that it's "what I do best." Would that be considered a theme? Works for me.
4. Jerry's Call to Adventure comes when he writes his mission statement at around the 8 or 9 minute mark.
5. He almost immediately Refuses the Call when he tries to stop the mission statement from being distributed. (I thought it was a nice touch having the character in the movie that he's watching say "Boom" as Jerry is realizing what a horrible mistake he might have made.)
6. At the 11 minute mark, after Jerry receives the applause from everyone at the office because of the mission statement, his voice over says, "I was 35. I had started my life." Which I think fits the 'whose story is it' bit of dialogue.
7. He gets fired at around the 22 minute mark and by minute 30 he's yelling "Show me the money!" into the phone to the Cuba Gooding Jr. character, missing calls with all of his other clients as he tries to convince this one. I think that episode qualifies as a curve and The First Threshold.
Pretty Woman: I didn't watch this one as carefully, but I was interested to notice that Julia Roberts' line to her hooker friend, Kit, "Don't you want to get out of here?" happened at the 10 minute mark... identifying the movie as her story and telling us that what she wants is a better life. She then gets hired to spend the whole week as Richard Gere's "beck and call girl" at minute 30. First Threshold, perhaps? Hmmm...
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